the NHL All Star Fan Ballot has been released. Lidstrom, Zetterberg, Datsyuk and Kronwall are on it.

fans can start voting on November 14th

Among the few features in the 2012 NHL All-Star Fan Balloting are interactive online ballots in eight different languages, the most in NHL All-Star Fan Balloting history. Fans around the world will be able to vote online at NHL.com/vote in English, French, German, Czech, Finnish, Russian, Slovak and Swedish. Voting concludes Jan. 4, with the top six vote-getters by position - three forwards, two defensemen and goalie – set to take part in the 2012 Tim Hortons NHL All-Star Game®.

Honestly, Howard has to win a cup to be considered. We all know how good he is, but there is a lot of goaltending talent in the league right now, the great goalies on crappy teams draw most of the attention, and probably rightfully so. Likewise the goalies on excellent teams do, too. Once the Wings win a Cup with Howard he'll get all the attention he deserves.

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Honestly, Howard has to win a cup to be considered. We all know how good he is, but there is a lot of goaltending talent in the league right now, the great goalies on crappy teams draw most of the attention, and probably rightfully so. Likewise the goalies on excellent teams do, too. Once the Wings win a Cup with Howard he'll get all the attention he deserves.

Good to see Kronner getting some love, though.

The part about the Wings winning a cup with Howard gave me goosebumps!

Who do you take off to put Howard on? The only realistic choice I can see (considering both skill and the fact that teams should have at least a couple guys on the ballot) is Jaroslav Halak. And that's because Halak has effectively lost his starter role this season to Brian Elliott, who has had a better season so far than Jimmy Howard - and would therefore be a better replacement.

Howard might play well enough to make the game, but leaving him off the ballot is reasonable. He's an average starter on a team with a bunch of players who are "can't be left off" players. If you could only put four Wings on, who would they be? Z, Dats, Nick, and Kronner. That's the correct answer. Howard, Franzen, Filppula all are good players, but they are all secondary to that top-four. It's like Sakic-Forsberg-Roy-Ozolinsh for the Avs during their heyday. You can push for Foote, but Ozolinsh was the team's top defenseman and one of the best in the league. Kamensky and Ricci deserve mentions as important forwards, but none crack that foursome.

So it's as much about the Wings having a bunch of star players as it is about Howard not being a star player. It's like the All-Star ballot version of how people perceived Chris Osgood; "he's not one of the top three or four players on a great team, and he's given up a couple of bad goals in his career. He's average at best."

If Howard plays like he's capable, he'll be an All-Star. If he plays like he did last year, Joey MacDonald or a trade acquisition will be starting for the Wings in the playoffs.

"I've never seen a warlock do that without his magic.""I once devoured a monk's soul. It tasted like chocolate."

I was gonna be a bit more serious about it and not vote for Red Wings, but then I saw Crosby on the list despite not playing a single game yet, and remembered the Fitzpatrick issue, and said f*** it, I'm voting all Wings, it's a joke anyways.

Who do you take off to put Howard on? The only realistic choice I can see (considering both skill and the fact that teams should have at least a couple guys on the ballot) is Jaroslav Halak. And that's because Halak has effectively lost his starter role this season to Brian Elliott, who has had a better season so far than Jimmy Howard - and would therefore be a better replacement. ...

Broduer, Luongo, Bryzgalov, Price, Halak, Hiller, Remier, or Ward...

Not sure why you'd have to take anyone off though, I don't think there's any rule.

Also: great rookie season, fell off last year, great so far this year. I'd say he's a bit closer to being a 'star' than Kronwall is.

I already mailed in my ballots for Crosby and Staal, both have had a great jump this season. The things they are doing is this league are bar none. I have seem some of the video clips of Crosby at practice, wow I don't even understand why he is on the ballot figured he would already be the captain.

I was gonna be a bit more serious about it and not vote for Red Wings, but then I saw Crosby on the list despite not playing a single game yet, and remembered the Fitzpatrick issue, and said f*** it, I'm voting all Wings, it's a joke anyways.

Not sure why you'd have to take anyone off though, I don't think there's any rule.

Also: great rookie season, fell off last year, great so far this year. I'd say he's a bit closer to being a 'star' than Kronwall is.

Howard over Luongo, Bryzgalov, Price, Hiller, or Ward? That's crazy talk. He has outplayed none of them over the past couple of seasons and has done nothing to suggest he deserves their spot.Brodeur finished last season like a champ and, although he's not elite anymore, is still probably more important to the Devils than Howie to the Wings.

Howard vs. Halak and Reimer. Reimer has been absolutely excellent in his limited time in the NHL, and has probably been Toronto's best player in that entire span. It's like taking Selanne or Potvin off the ballot in 1992-93. Halak I addressed earlier; he's the only reasonable choice and Howard isn't the best choice to replace him, anyway.

They need to either move the All-Star game to after the season is over, to keep interest in hockey going, or get rid of fan balloting. People fifty years from now will be evaluating players on their all-star appearances and assume they were actually all-stars in the traditional sense, instead of just fan favorites regardless of how they're playing.

The fact that Crosby could get voted on without ever playing a game this season exposes the absurdness of the format. Sports historians will say "Crosby was an X-time All-Star" and the number will mean absolutely nothing.

New e-book: The Spanish-American War: A Brief History. Relatively short, introductory read for casual history buffs and people who want to learn more about a forgotten war that changed America. Available at BN.com, Smashwords, Kobo, and Diesel E-Books right now. Same link as above.